Emigration from Korea to other countries in Asia began as a trickle in the mid-nineteenth century, and accelerated during the first half of the twentieth century as the depredations of Japanese colonial rule increased. A second wave of emigrants began leaving for the Western Hemisphere, particularly the United States, in the mid-1960s. Kyopo hail from virtually every country in the world, but the vast majority reside in just three countries: China, the U.S. and Japan. Today, kyopo number approximately 6.5 million—one for every ten Koreans residing in the Korean Peninsula.

This exhibition features a series of 171 full-length portraits of kyopo from around the world. It shows each subject in their analogical plenitude, as Roland Barthes would say, and betrays/displays the intimate relation of the photographer to the portraits. The subjects are posed frontally, with their eyes returning the camera's and the viewer’s gaze. Thus, each subject connects with and mirrors the others, while also reflecting their inherent differences. Ranging in age from teenagers to a septuagenarian, they are novelists, actors, teachers, comedians, athletes, executives and retirees. The striking diversity of the group—the subjects do not appear to have much in common other than their Korean ancestry—challenges the idea of a monolithic, authentic Korean identity and stimulates exploration of what it means to be Korean. The exhibition also poses the question of how kyopo negotiate the sometimes conflicting expectations and sensibilities arising from their intrinsic bicultural identity.